Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Upcycling is a Creative and Fun Activity for our Children

 It took us a long time to post new learning materials here. But I get obliged to share this article to help us cope with the long-lasting impact of the pandemic.  Allow me to share this craft activity that you can do with your children.

Our natural resources are dwindling and we need to help our earth recover and revive. To do that, we can tap on our creative minds and produce another product from the trash. We call this "upcycling".  I have heard of some industries earning much from upcycled materials. For example, google search "bags made of tarpaulin" and you'll get bags sold through Lazada, and from Freitag. The tarpaulin is very sturdy. If you have an eye for design, it will not be hard to produce a saleable upcycled bag.

Now, for our children let us make this simple but useful bath scrub for our backs. It is easy.



What you will need are net bags made of plastic.  These net bags were used to contain garlic. You may also use plastic net bags that were used to pack oranges or lemons.

Clean the net packaging materials and cut it into 1 single sheet so that it will be easy to fold.  Now get a string, or thick thread and a needle or crochet hook.  Use whichever is handy for you.  

Fold the net lengthwise.  Try if it's thick enough.  Usually, I do four-folds.  Then stitch it using the thick thread you found or knit it at the center so that it will not spread wide.

On both ends, seam the corners together and add a loop so that you can hold both ends.  Since I know how to crochet, I thickened the holder through knitting.  You may use ropes or other forms of thick handle for the ends.

Now, your back scrubber is finished!

 From this...

...to this.



Sunday, February 14, 2021

FEATURED ARTIST 1: CORAZON G. PATARATA

We have introduced to you a proficient and well respected artist, Ms. Corazon G. Patarata before the launch of CASCADE.  Now, we are featuring her once again as she shares her latest works with us. She has contributed well to our fund raising for CASCADE Art Studio and without her help, we would have found it difficult to sustain our activities.  For this month of February, allow me to introduce to you Ate Cora as we call her.

Ms. Patarata painted this bag when I asked her to share her talent for the sake of helping people with needs.  She willingly and excitedly acted on my request and has produced this pretty hand-painted bag, designed with the birds of paradise flowers.  This bag went to Ms. Michelle Diwa, who highly appreciated Ate Cora's works.






Latest work of Ms. Patarata
Bright Morning. acrylic on canvas. 24 in.high x 18 in wide. 2021


     61 years old, with an earlier 20-year experience as a diplomat, is a self-taught artist, who works with watercolors, oil pastels and acrylic paints, in a modern realist-impressionist style. Her subjects are flowers, landscapes, marine life, famous landmarks and monuments, heavenly bodies, and angels, and sometimes there are human figures included in her picture compositions.  Two articles about Cora’s painting career, penned by Babeth Lolarga, were published by Verafiles.Org and circulated in Yahoo News: “A Former Diplomat’s Sojourn Into Painting”, published on 30 May 2014; and “The Traveller As Painter”, published on 20 January 2017. Souce: https://verafiles.org/articles/traveler-painter

     Patarata is with the Antipolo-based artists’ group ARTipolo that has the Hemophilia Association of the Philippines for Love and Service as permanent beneficiary for all its exhibits. This self-taught vignette painter admires Amorsolo. “I aspire to someday learn his techniques with light and shadows.”Among the Renaissance artists, she singled out Rembrandt for the sensitivity of his human figures, Tintoretto for his lights and shadows, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gaugin and Vincent Van Gogh for their colors and brushstrokes.

     Of the moderns, she likes John Singer Sargent “for the emotional impact of his paintings,” Frida Kahlo “for her use of Nature as symbols for human emotions,” Miro “for his joyful and playful abstract renditions” and Norman Rockwell “for portraying scenes of everyday life that everyone can relate with.” 

     Now that she is doing what fulfills her, she calls painting “an essential part of me. Painting is something I owe to my Maker and to the people around me.Through the process, I enjoy many good feelings in heart and spirit.Painting is like praying. It is like a cleansing and uplifting process.”


     The following are Ms. Patarata's works.  If you are a collector or an Art enthusiast, you may want to avail one her works, which is posted in our Gallery Shop.     Check it out now!

"A Place For Healing", acrylic on canvas, 24 inches high x 30 inches wide, 2021.       

   


About Rose Gob

My photo
Hello! Thank you for reading my blog. I am Rose Gob, a Knowledge Management expert, a seasoned HR and OD practitioner, an artist and an educator by heart. I have created three (3) blogs to share articles in the field of creative arts, cooperative, social enterprise industry. But among these blogs, I write more for my art blog, www.cascadeartstudio.com. During the pandemic, I was able to populate my blogs with various topics. But now, I realized that I need to focus. I hope you will give me feedback for topics that you want to learn. Send me questions and I'll try my best to answer your questions. Again, thank you for reading and please do check my blogs often. Have a great day!